We appreciate that not everyone has a credit card. For those who do, we are happy to accept Mastercard and Visa.We are also pleased to accept postal payments and bank transfers – further details can be found on the Join page.
Do I need to renew my membership each month?
If you opt for monthly membership, it will automatically renew each month at the lower rate of $27.95 (unless you cancel). If you choose to join for 3 months, it will be up to you to renew your subscription at the end of the 3 months.
How safe is my personal / credit card information?
When you enter the sign up page, you will notice a padlock motif appear on your browser. This signifies that the page is secure. Your information is encrypted to prevent fraud and your information is stored on secured servers.
Can I join by PayPal?
Unfortunately not. Several years ago PayPal changed their terms and conditions and
stopped accepting website signups via their service. They even closed my business account
down to make sure. We can accept payment by bank transfer, though: please Email me for details.
Have you registered? Forum registration is free, and you can use any username or password you like- it doesn't have to be the same as your members' area pass.
Why do you ask for my address when I sign up?
This is purely for credit card verification purposes. You can rest assured that neither Restrained Elegance nor any third party will be using this information to bombard you with junk mail or, indeed, send you any correspondence at all.
Why do you ask for my email address when I sign up?
We will email your account or purchase details when you sign up or make a purchase from the store. We will not send you any junk email or reveal your email to any third party. We will only email you again with administrative emails (eg notification of account expiry).
How will the payment be displayed on my statement?
Your card will be billed as Game Time Enterprises
Who do I contact if I have queries relating to billing?
Why is my credit card rejected when I try to sign up?
We don't have control over the credit card sign-ups: this is all done by secure transactions
at the bank. The most common reasons for decline are:
Our (US-based) bank may not accept credit cards from your country. This one is out of our control, sorry.
Your card may have had disputed payments with adult websites in the past. If a card has been used
for what the bank terms "high risk" transactions (like online ones where the card holder isn't present)
and those transactions have been disputed, the bank may not accept such payments on that card again.
There may be some mismatch between your address and the country you appear to be signing up from.
Banks are twitchy about out-of-country use of card; you may have more luck with a card issued in the
country you are currently in.
Login Issues
Why can't I log in?
The most common reasons:
You need to have cookies active for the site. You may need to turn your security or privacy settings down a notch to make sure cookies from www.restrainedelegance.com are allowed on your PC.
You might be having browser issues. Restart your browser and try again. If that still isn't working, try installing Firefox and try accessing the site with that.
You've mixed up UPPER case and lower case letters. Usernames and passwords are CaSe SenSiTiVE!
Not all special characters are allowed in usernames or passwords. Check with webmaster@restrainedelegance.com if you think this may be causing you problems .
Your account may have been suspended by our security scripts. See below.
I've forgotten my password.
Please email support@surfmail.net or webmaster@restrainedelegance.com. Please give us your username (if you can remember it) or your full name or the email address you signed up with, so we can find your account on the system. There is no need to send your credit card number.
My account has been suspended. Why? What do I do?
We have security scripts to protect against hackers and password traders. Sometimes these
scripts can block legitimate users (eg if you've accessed the site from several different computers
recently, or have had too many failed login attempts). Sorry for the inconvenience: please email support@surfmail.net or webmaster@restrainedelegance.com and we will issue you with new login details. We need these scripts to keep the hackers and pirates at bay I'm afraid.
I try to log in but get bounced back to the login screen
Your account has either expired or been suspended by our security scripts, see above.
Photo/Video Store
What is the photo/video store?
The store allows you to purchase older Restrained Elegance photosets or videos individually, without having to join the site.
Are all the sets on the Photo/Video store cart available to members?
No. You can see all the sets currently available to members on the updates page. The reason we cannot make all the sets
available to members at once is down to bandwidth usage. When you download a set from the site,
our web host charges for the bandwidth you've used. That works out around $1 per GB you download.
Since a one-month membership costs $29.95, I try to keep the material on the site at one time down to about
30 GB. Any more, and someone could join the site, download everything, and I'd actually end up losing money.
Every website has some sort of limitation placed on the amount you can download, even if they don't say
so up-front. They have to to stay in business. This is often done by a cap
on downloads per day or per month, or by limiting the speed of your connection, or by making the older material so hard to access that it discourages people from downloading everything they might want.
I've always thought you should be able to download everything as fast as your connection can handle, so I decided instead to keep the site fresh by adding new stuff every day, taking the oldest stuff off, and bringing the sets back in the archive. So that's why not all the sets on the shopping cart are on the members' area. If you join and you
want to see some specific sets in the archives, you can always email webmaster@restrainedelegance.com and I'll schedule some for you as soon as I can.
Why do you need my address?
We use the address for credit card verification purposes only. We will not send you anything in the mail.
How are my purchases delivered?
When you check out, you will receive a link to download ZIP files of your chosen sets or videos. Download these to your hard drive and extract the files.
I lost my connection and my download failed!
You can restart your download HERE. If you experience problems please email support@surfmail.net for assistance.
I'm interested in a set on the members' area. When will it be up on the Photo/Video Store?
Generally sets are uploaded to the store six to nine months after they appear on the members' area. Why the delay? This is subcontracted out and we've always been about that far behind. If you want to see the set right now, you can always join and see it right now- and download hundreds of other great sets as well.
Technical Information
What data format is the content on the site?
The videos are available in small and large WMV format, and MPEG4/video iPod formats. All images
are JPEGs but each set is also downloadable as a ZIP file.
How do I open zip files?
Many operating systems will allow you to open zip files by selecting or right clicking the zip and selecting the relevant command to extract the files. If your OS doesn’t support this, you can download programs like WinZip.
My ZIP file is corrupted
This is usually a sign of an incomplete download. Try downloading the file again.
What are the video file sizes?
Older videos are encoded at 256 kB/s (small size) and 1024 kB/sec (full size). We are moving to 2096 kB/s for new videos. File sizes can vary but expect around 100 MB for a six minute video full size.
What are the image file sizes?
We are well known for the quality of our photography. To adapt to growing monitors, our latest jpegs are typically 900 x 1280 and, on average, 400 kB or so in size.
How do I watch the videos?
You can watch WMV videos with Windows Media Player. You may need to download a newer version,
and Mac users will have to download the correct (Intel/non-Intel) version from Microsoft. To watch, download the video file (right-click and
choose "SAVE AS" for Windows users). Then double click the video file, or launch Windows Media Player
and open the file from there.
You can watch the iPod/MP4 videos with Quicktime Viewer from Apple. Again, download the video, then drag to Quicktime player or open from that program. You may need
to change which program opens the video files by default to get it to run by double-clicking.
How do I download videos to my iPod/iPhone?
In theory, you should be able to download direct from the site to your iPhone. Some users have
reported issues with the Safari browser thinking the videos are text files. If you save the file to
your local storage instead of downloading it, then play from there, it should work. I find downloading
via iTunes works the best. Download the video to your PC/Mac hard drive. Then drag to the iTunes window or
choose "Add file". The next time you synchronise your iPod it should transfer the video for you.
What browser settings do you recommend?
If you are having trouble vieweing the site, make sure you have cookies switched on and allowed for the site.
Who do I contact if I experience technical difficulties?
If you have problems with your access to the site, please contact Surfnet support at support@surfmail.net. If there is a problem with the content of the site (broken links, missing file, etc.) please email Hywel directly at webmaster@restrainedelegance.com
Why aren't all the sets on the shopping cart on the members' area?
It is a question of balancing download costs against membership price. See here for an explanation of why we do it this way.
I want to see a set from the cart on the members' archives
I'm happy to schedule sets in the archives- email me and I'll try to fit it in for you. I usually schedule a month or so in advance so please be patient.
Do you do custom shoots?
Not generally. We have found in the past that most people significantly underestimate the
amount of time and money involved in staging a shoot to Restrained Elegance standards. The lack
of flexibility in shooting to a brief means that it can end up costing significantly more than
to stage the shoot than most people are hoping for.
Do you shoot members' requests?
Absolutely! We can't promise to shoot every little detail exactly as you want but we're very
happy to take inspiration from your ideas and suggestions. You can email us at webmaster@restrainedelegance.com or post on the Members' forum.
Can I chat to the models?
Several of our models are regular posters on the members' forum, including our resident slave-girl, Ariel Anderssen. We periodically hold members chat sessions with models as well.
Would you be interested in exchanging banner links or Guest Galleries?
Visit our links system page here or email Kate to discuss.
Where did you get those lovely stainless steel collars and cuffs?
The other equipment is from various suppliers acquired over the years. Email me or post on the members' forum and we'll see if we can track down where a particular item came from for you.
You mean these ones? They are from SM factory.
